Thea’s voice echoed out. She sounded desperate, which had a few of the girls looking up, startled.
“I’m right here.”
I hurried into the kitchen, where she was rushing through. I braced my hands out to catch her as she stumbled to a halt.
“One of the girls knew something,” she said, her words coming so fast she was almost stuttering. “She came from a small town out that way. She said the settlement was only an hour from her. I need a map.”
“Luca!” it was my turn to shout.
He was by my side in seconds, his laptop still in his hands, eyes wide. “What is it?”
“We’re narrowing our search,” I said quickly. “The omega knows something.”
“One step closer to Aries,” Nikolai breathed out.
For the first time since I’d known my brother, he looked truly alive.
I vowed right then that I would do everything I could to find the omega. Not just for my sake, but for his.
He was truly the only real family I had outside of Luca. Our pack was important to me, and watching my brother shut down had nearly killed me.
When we reached the omega, I sat down in front of her. Luca was right by my side, hands already hovering over the laptop.
“Tell me everything you know.”
Chapter
Fourteen
Aries
Two Weeks Later
“What’s wrong?” I asked. Cassie had been staring at the computer screen for ten minutes now, her eyebrows furrowed and eyes unfocused.
She blinked a few times to clear her head before turning to me, immediately plastering on a smile that was absolutely a mask. I narrowed my eyes.
“I swear to all that’s holy, if you tell me you’re fine?—”
She let out a laugh, but chewed on her bottom lip as if she couldn’t seem to find the words.
“You know there’s nothing between me and Leon, right?”
“He said that,” I agreed, tilting my head to the side, trying to figure out where this was going.
“It’s just that I don’t want you to hold back. If you guys like each other, and it seems there’s chemistry there, then you should go for it. He’s finally coming to life. It’s because of you.”
“I did think there was something between you at first,” I agreed, “but he reassured me there wasn’t. Nothing’s going on between us, though, Cassie. Healing takes time.”
She rolled her eyes. “Girl, I know that as well as you do,” she said, shaking her head. “But sometimes you can heal while also finding yourself a pack.”
“I’m hardly a pack,” I laughed, shaking my head. “I gave up on my pack dreams a long time ago.”
“Why?” she asked bluntly. We were at that point in this friendship. We’d all grown close over the last two weeks and spent nearly every day together. It was one of those friendships that just clicked.
She was right about chemistry. My omega decided he was ours that first time we met. Then, again, when we found him on the side of the road. There was no denying that I was drawn to the beta.
Leon brought out every protective, feral instinct in me, but we were both so broken that it couldn’t happen.
